Former IIT-B Professor Appointed as New IIT Dharwad Director, Faces Tough Challenges

With the appointment of Professor P Sheshu of IIT Mumbai as the new director of IIT Dharwad, the institute has got its full-time director.

The Indian Institute of Technology, Dharwad has a new Director finally. IIT Mumbai's Professor P. Sheshu has been appointed Director of IIT Dharwad and will face tough challenges and other difficulties that may crop up in the tasks ahead.

55-year-old Professor P Sheshu is a B.Tech Mechanical Engineering degree holder from NIT Warangal, Ph.D. and M.Tech from IIT Madras. He is an expert in Design Engineering.

The new Director is expected to take charge from the first week of February, 2017. He will have to put the new IIT in firm footing because the infrastructure development work of the institute is pathetically slow.

Tough tasks pending for the new Director of IIT Dharwad include:

Construction of two extra floors on WALMI or the Main Water and Land Management Institute

Streamlining of classroom and laboratories

Building hostels for the students

Ensure water supply to the campus from the Malaprabha

Provision of uninterrupted power supply

The current In-charge Director Narayan Punekar said that the pace of infrastructure development is very slow. IIT Dharwad is one of the biggest IITs, but for developing such a big institute, but lacks in infrastructure of place and ambience. The infrastructure development process is very slow. From the side of the institute, the administration has been trying to push it but their efforts were not enough.

There has been an inordinate delay in getting the materials of renovation. Various agencies and departments are taking time in releasing the materials. The to-do tasks at hand include incompletion of paper-work for land acquisition and its transfer to the IIT Society. While the faculty is ensuring smooth functioning of academic work, it is difficult to continue unhampered teaching due to inadequate logistic support.

We just hope that the new Director of IIT Dharwad is able to tackle these issues upon assuming office.